Author: Y. McBlain

Whitecross PS P5/6/7 Fight plastic pollution.

Welcome to our blog post by p5/6/7 at Whitecross Primary school. We want to tell you about how we have been fighting plastic pollution down at our burn. Please click this link to view the first part of our presentation and this link to see the second part. Here are some of our thoughts:

Ruby “I really enjoyed this topic because there was fun activities to do such as: litter picking and a class protest”

Sophie “I really enjoyed doing this and loved doing the presentation”

Kylan “My favourite part about this was the litter pick and releasing the fish and picking up the litter.”

Lily –  “I liked doing the presentation like Sophie everyone had good ideas and it was one of the times we were all working as a class and I really liked the litter pick.”

Grace “I really enjoyed doing the presentation with my classmates and I also enjoyed litter picking.”

Here’s what we learned from our work:

New French words.

That the plastic pollution in our burn could end up in the ocean.

How to stop plastic pollution.

 

An opportunity to share your thoughts about climate change

Falkirk Council has a Climate Change team led by an officer called Mari-Claire Morgan. This team includes 5 people who work with all services across the Council to help everyone use energy efficiently. The team help us all study climate change in lots of ways, but this blog post explains how they connect pupils from schools with our local politicians – also known as “elected members”. From August 2022, we want to make sure that more pupils from Falkirk schools can join in with these meetings between the Climate Change team and our politicians. The meetings will be organised so that pupils can share their own climate change projects, plus any worries or questions they have. This is one of the ways in which Falkirk Council and Falkirk Children’s Services want to make sure that the voices and ideas of pupils are listened to and acted upon. The articles of the UNCRC say that all pupils in Falkirk Council area have the right to be heard and to contribute to decisions about their education.

These meetings have a long and fancy name – they are called ” Climate Change All Stakeholder Working Group meetings”. The first two will take place on September 7th and November 11th 2022 between 3-4pm. A member of staff in each school will help pupils to join the Microsoft Teams meeting because it needs to take place outside Glow. Please speak to your form teacher or a member of your school’s senior leadership team if you would like to be one of the pupils who joins these online meetings. We feel it is very important that children and young people in Falkirk have an opportunity to share their thoughts about climate change and hope you think that this new opportunity is valuable.

Falkirk Children and Young People – Come and join our group!

In October 2021 around 300 children and young people from Falkirk Council schools met online for the first time. They chose to join this meeting because they wanted to have a voice and share their opinions about their education. Some of them were part of pupil voice or eco-groups in their own school, and others volunteered to come along as individuals. Many of these pupils care deeply about climate change and other issues which affect their lives and their education – they want to work together to change these things. The big group split into the 5 smaller groups below to make it as easy as possible for each young person to be part of the groups which interested them most:

  • A Voice for all – this group makes sure that the ideas and opinions of our very youngest learners are listened to
  • Young Activists – this group share their opinions and ideas about important decisions which affect children and young people across Falkirk
  • Guardians of climate change – this group are passionate about our environment and our planet and want to take action on climate change
  • Children’s Rights Matter – this group are busy making sure that everyone across Falkirk know about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1987) and all of its articles (Click here to find our more about your rights)
  • Leading the team – this group makes decisions about how to organise our work across all of the channel groups

Next school year the group want to meet face to face, at least once in each school term and their first meeting will be on 26th August 2022. The meetings will all take place during school time. This new blog was created at the same time as the group to make it easier for the group to communicate with other children, young people, parents and staff across Falkirk Council. We are writing this blog post to see if there are other children and young people who would like to join the Falkirk Children and Young People’s group. Please click here to fill out our contact form if you would like to join.

You might want to know more about what the group have done this year – so far we have:

  1. Taken part in 4 whole group meetings and 1 other meeting in our channels
  2. Met our new Members of the Scottish Youth Parliament for Falkirk
  3. Learned how to take part in a meeting
  4. Created logos for some of our channel groups
  5. Used our Team to post messages to each other
  6. Planned what we want to do following the COP 26 event in Glasgow 2021

We’ll look forward to hearing from you.

Youth Club leaders organise a Summer Extravaganza for July 2022

Can you believe it is now June and our summer holidays aren’t very far away?! With that in mind, this message from young Falkirk leaders might be very interesting to you all.

 

 

HIYA

We hope this letter finds you Happy and well.

We are a group of Young leaders, known as the G O F F ‘s (Group Of Falkirks Future), that volunteer at our local Youth Clubs around Falkirk.

This year, we are hosting a Summer Extravaganza at Muiravonside Country Park on the 25th July 2022. It will be a day of fun filled activities and adventure for Primary School aged young people and we were hoping you would be interested in joining us. Maybe you guys have an activity you could host or even if you would just like to come along and join in with our ideas.

We are just at the planning stage yet and so far have arts and crafts, face painting, and many other enjoyable activities planned. We’ll look forward to seeing you then!

Pupils using their voices to shape their education at Braes High school

 

Pupils and staff at Braes High School are creating new ways of working together to make sure that pupil voices and ideas shape the way their school works. Just before the Covid lock down and school closures, they began to build their existing Pupil Self Evaluation Leaders group by inviting all pupils to join in. 60 pupils representing all year groups volunteered, then in early 2022, 22 pupil volunteers met with David Ironside, depute head teacher, and Gillian McDonald, class teacher at their Pupil Self Evaluation Leaders’ Conference. In order to decide what they felt they wanted to improve in their school, they used a toolkit which other pupils in Braes HS primary schools had developed. Lawson is an S 5 volunteer Pupil Self-Evaluation Leader who took part in this process. He explained that:

“We are at the starting stages of this process, although we have been evaluating the teaching and learning in our own classes already using what we call 5 Step Fridays. Now we are looking at things which could be different in school such as rights, identity… basically we get the voices of pupils themselves. We want to improve our school by looking at it, changing it and moving it forward – not backwards.” Lawson has noticed how the work of pupil self evaluation leaders has changed Braes HS during his 5 years there and said that it has become a better place. He is pleased that loads of junior pupils are now getting involved, and feels over the moon that even though he will leave school and move on, by being a pupil school leader, he has improved his social skills as well as left something of value behind him.

The pupil leaders who were evaluating the toolkit statements about Health and Wellbeing at Braes HS also took time out to share their thinking about their role in this process. They shared their reasons for wanting to be pupil self-evaluation leaders:

  1. we care about the progress of our school
  2. having this role helps us develop valuable skills which we can add to our skills profile
  3. we like representing other pupils’ views and ideas
  4. we want to improve the Braes HS experience for future pupils

They had clear thoughts and feelings about having pupil leadership roles:

  • Health and well being is really important – both mental and physical well being – this needs to be a priority
  • The skills we develop through this voluntary work are valuable now but also when we leave school
  • We enjoy having our voices heard
  • It helps that senior leaders in our school are part of this – we know we are talking to someone with the power to do something and we can see things happening and changing as a result.

The evaluations completed by the Pupil Self-evaluation Leaders will be shared and developed within their Glow Team. They will then plan how to lead their fellow pupils through a similar process to make sure that the decisions about school improvement in Braes HS are shaped by as many pupil voices as possible. Braes HS also have a Pupil Council who help to make sure that pupil voices and ideas are listened to, and acted upon.

Calling all Secondary School Falkirk Pupils – do you want to shape the school curriculum?

You might know that the Scottish Government asked an organisation called the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) to report on how our education system should change following the coronavirus pandemic. The OECD made recommendations which included a need to update the curriculum (the knowledge, skills and attitudes pupils learn in school). So that it isn’t only teachers and head teachers who get to say what the new curriculum will be like, the OECD have started a campaign called “Student Voices on Curriculum (Re)Design”. If you want to have a say in the Scottish school curriculum re-design, they are inviting secondary school pupils to make and submit short videos sharing their thoughts and ideas. Click here to find out more.

Being a Member of our Scottish Youth Parliament – what it means to me by Robbie Burgess MSYP

I have had the opportunity to be the Member of Scottish Youth Parliament (MSYP) for Falkirk West since 2017 representing all young people in Falkirk. The Scottish Youth Parliament (SYP) has given me lots of opportunities to improve my confidence and to represent young people. I spoke in the Scottish Parliament about the challenges faced by pupils with additional support needs and some schools are now making sure that they teach lessons in schools about ASN as a result. I’ve been able to represent young people at the Government’s children’s rights review about bullying which young people in Falkirk overwhelmingly told me was their number one issue at school. I also spoke about domestic abuse paid leave which is now being talked about locally and nationally. And also had the chance to represent young people in Falkirk in the House of Commons, and Scotland in the UN Embassy in Geneva.

Young people are making a difference every day from protesting and talking to MSYPs, MSPs, MPs and Councillors about climate change and other issues such as the SQA fiasco that occurred last year and this year. Young people every day are using their voice for change or trying to find ways to make that change and to make a difference.

That is why the Scottish Youth Parliament is so important to young people as that’s where they can make the most change for young people!

In this election in November Falkirk has 14 amazing candidates who I have the opportunity to support and they all have great ideas on how to make Falkirk better for young people here and across Scotland.

It’s important that we make sure that young people here take part in the upcoming elections so they can have their voices heard, and be part of our democracy and make a difference as young people are the future for change so let’s help support them in that.

Robbie Burgess MSYP
Member of Scottish Youth Parliament for Falkirk West Constituency

 

Information about our Falkirk Children & Young People’s group for parents and carers

Falkirk Children and Young People’s Group
All pupils in Falkirk have been hearing about an exciting new project which offers them an opportunity to get involved in a Council wide pupils’ group. This post offers more information if your child has shown an interest in being part of this group. Hopefully the information below will answer any questions you have about what this will involve.
What is the group?
At the moment the group is called ‘Falkirk Children and Young People’s Group but one of the first tasks for the group will be to agree what they want to be called! The group is being formed to make sure that children and young people are fully involved in making decisions about things that matter to, or affect them. Examples of this will include influencing Council policies, taking action on climate change and making progress towards Falkirk Net Zero. It will have a similar role to a school Pupil Council but at a whole Council level, and will help make sure that Children’s rights are built into all Council services.
How will it work?
Using Microsoft Teams within Glow (an on-line meeting platform) pupils and staff volunteers will discuss various projects, agree on actions and work out how to make these happen. Children and young people will be able to choose which projects they want to get involved in. The groups will be facilitated and supported by staff, but it is hoped that the children and young people will gradually take more responsibility for how these meetings are run.
How often will the group meet?
There will be different projects that individuals can get involved in and each group will decide how often they are going to meet on-line. It is likely that initially this will be once or twice each school term.
Will it be a safe environment for my child to meet others on-line?
Glow is a secure on-line environment for pupils and the Microsoft Team will be closely monitored by staff. All group members will have an introductory session, where they will be reminded about on-line etiquette and expectations, and this message will be reinforced regularly by staff.
Will taking part mean my child misses out on other classroom activities?
At the moment we don’t have further details about when the meetings will take place, or how long they will last, as we really want the group members to be making those decisions – it’s their group! However the meetings will initially take place during the school day, and this may mean your child being out of class. This is not unusual in schools as pupils take part in a wide range of opportunities outwith regular classes. Being part of this group will help your child develop skills for life and work as part of the wider curriculum provided by our authority.
Why would this be a good thing for my child to take part in?
Your child will have opportunities to develop leadership and communication skills as they connect with pupils from across Falkirk Council. Being able to influence and take action on things that matter to them will also build confidence and a sense of pride and self-esteem. They will be able to experience first-hand just how much of a difference they can make when working as part of a focussed team.
Hopefully this information has convinced you that the Falkirk Children and Young People’s Group would be a worthwhile project for your child to get involved with but if you have any further questions please get in touch.

Introducing Our Falkirk How good is OUR school Toolkit

Children and young people from Sheildhill, Laurieston and Bantaskin Primary Schools helped create a toolkit to make sure that pupils’ play a real part in the way their schools work. They made sure that the toolkit is easy to use. They spent time thinking about the kind of words to use so that the youngest children in our schools and early learning and childcare centres could understand the questions and give their answers.

The adults in your school or centre can find the toolkit documents here when they are logged in to Glow. They can share a Power Point presentation with you so that you can understand how to use the toolkit. There are 5 different sets of questions and these are arranged under the themes and colours above.

Each theme has questions like the ones below. Groups of children and young people read the questions in the toolkit then share their opinions about how well their school/centre does this.

The children and young people who designed the toolkit decided that traffic lights were the easiest way for them to show how well their school was doing. It their school/centre is doing well with a question they choose green, ok is amber and if lots of improvement is needed then it’s a red light. The children who’ve used the toolkit think it’s really important to write down the reasons for their answers too. Here is one of the tool kit sheets they helped to make.

We hope you get to use the toolkit soon. Some schools used it when it was time to decide how well they were doing and what they want to get better at. Sometimes pupil council or other groups use it to help them decide what they want to get better at too. Using the toolkit can help you make a plan for what you want to do and how you want to do it.

Please use the comments space below to tell us how you use it.

How to join our Falkirk children and young people’s group

What is the group for?

The pupil group we are building will make sure that children and young people can help make decisions and changes which affect them in Falkirk Council schools and communities.

Why do we need a children and young person’s group?

You might have heard about the UNCRC in the news or in school? (Click here for more information about the UNCRC) This is an international convention or law which says that from 1 November 2021, all schools, local authorities, groups and organisations need to show how they obey each part of the UNCRC. If you haven’t already heard about this in school, you will do soon!

Click on the picture below to watch the information video created by pupils at Braes High School and Maddiston Primary School.

How can you find out more about joining this group?

That’s simple – join one of our information meetings! These will be short, online Microsoft Teams meetings and there will be one each day during September 2021 (times below).  Please let your teacher know that you want to join a meeting so that they can help you take part. At the video meeting the Falkirk Council adults who are leading this work will tell you more and you can ask questions. They will also explain how you can join the group if you like what you hear!

 

 

We look forward to meeting you then.